random posts

Friday, 7 October 2016

Mental Floss presents an interesting assortment of emblems and symbols on national and territorial flags that tells the lore behind the scampering marten of Croatia, the Phrygian cap (hat on a stick) motif that represented manumission from slavery, and made me think of the aurochs, an extinct wild bull of Europe that’s on many coats-of-arms. I did not know, however, why Bermuda has, seemingly inauspiciously, a shipwreck on their flag and how that near-disaster inspired Shakespeare to pen to The Tempest—and nor did I realise that for its side bar of five intricately woven carpets representing the five chief tribes, the flag of Turkmenistan is considered the most vexillogically complex banner in the world.